DIVINE HEALING IS IN THE DIVINE WORD by David Paulson; W. S. Sadler

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 26, 1901

DIVINE HEALING IS IN THE DIVINE WORD

By David Paulson; W. S. Sadler

DAVID PAULSON AND W. S. SADLER

“He sent His word, and healed them.” Ps. 107:20. The divine word, in all its forms, has in it healing power; whether written in the Book, sketched in the skies, or written upon the fibers of muscle or nerve in the human frame. Wherever recognized, God’s word is a healing power. To obtain the healing which the divine word brings, it is necessary that we should receive the Word; and in receiving the Word, we must bring our lives into harmony with that life which is in the Word, even the life of Christ.

The healing power of the Word is not experienced in its fullness until we have received into our lives the One who is the source of this power. John 1:12. We must yield up to the Word—Christ—that which is to be healed; and thus put ourselves in contact with, and in obedience to, the Word and its divine Author. “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.” John 15:3. Wherever the word of God goes forth, and is received, that is, received as it is indeed, there is healing. Without the Word there is no healing that is divine. “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto, according to thy word.” Ps. 119:9. There is cleansing, saving, and healing power in the word of the divine Healer. As we conscientiously obey the life-giving principles of the Word, that is, make them a part of our character, we thus obtain the healing which is in the Word, and which is inseparable from the Word.

TO ANTAGONIZE THE WORD IS TO REJECT HEALING

By compromising or antagonizing the divine Word, we are arraying ourselves in opposition to divine healing; for the only way that God heals either soul or body is by the Word; by the light and truth and life that are in the Word. “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.” John 6:63. Disobedience to the word of the Lord means separation from God. Separation from God means divorcement from the Fountain-head of life, and health, and healing; and so the man who knowingly persists in manifesting a spirit of disrespect for the teachings of the word of God, can not possibly be a special channel through which God will manifest His healing power on earth. God is the divine Healer, and the laws of God are a transcript of the character of the divine Healer. Consequently, any man or woman who will compromise or antagonize the laws of God, either physically or spiritually, is fighting and opposing the very source and essence of divine healing.

Is it reasonable to expect that in manifesting himself as a divine healer, God will either deny His own character or place a special seal of approbation upon those who do so? But to hold that those who antagonize His word and knowingly trample upon His statutes are special channels of divine healing, would be nothing more nor less than a compromise of His divine character, as His character is manifested in His healing. It is because God is love that He seeks to heal man from the wounds of sin. Therefore every one who is a channel of divine healing on earth must be, as far as he has light, obedient to the Word, and consistent with the character of the divine Healer in heaven. Man needs healing because he is out of harmony with God and His laws. Can we expect God to do violence to His own laws, either physical or spiritual, in the manifestation of His power to heal a man, while the man is transgressing these laws?—Surely not.

PREACH THE HEALING WORD

In the gospel commission Christ enjoined the preaching of the Word, the teaching of truth, and said that signs and miracles would follow as a consequence. The Christian minister was never commissioned to preach miracles, wonders, signs, or divine healing apart from the DIVINE WORD. The Word, the glorious gospel, the everlasting gospel, Christ Jesus, is to be the keynote of the Christian’s message to a dying world. And it is this gospel that has in it saving and healing power to all who accept it in faith. It is the disposition to be in harmony with God, and the sincere effort, by the help of divine grace, to obey His laws, that bring man into that attitude where it is consistent for God especially to manifest himself as the Healer. It is by recognizing God as our Creator and our Redeemer,—by recognizing ourselves as His creatures, subject to His laws; as sinful, utterly unable to help ourselves, and wholly dependent upon Christ,—that we are prepared to recognize God as the divine Healer, as the giver of health to both soul and body.

To preach divine healing in a way to benefit those who hear, means nothing more nor less than to preach obedience to the divine Word, by faith—by the grace and faith that Jesus gives. God is the Healer, because He has power to create. And as healing is nothing more nor less than creating, God must first be recognized as Creator before He can be recognized as Healer. And yet to-day we find thousands who are trampling underfoot the Sabbath, the very institution the Lord gave to man to point to God as the Creator. “Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.” Eze. 20:12. And notwithstanding this antagonism to the laws of the Creator and to the institutions that point out God as Creator, these same persons are found preaching, even on the street corners, the wonders of “divine healing,” and claiming to be sources and centers of this power in the earth! “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isa. 8:20.

Preach the Word, and divine healing will surely accompany the message to those in whom it arouses a spirit of obedience. If the Word is not preached, there is absolutely no use of preaching divine healing. Healing in such case would be that which follows in the wake of presumption and disobedience, and not that which comes as a consequence of faith and obedience, and which accompanies the preaching of the Word, according to the gospel commission.